Whatever Have I Done to You, O Ethereal Essence?
by Yaroslawa
Summary: So it seems that Mr. England had meant it when he declared there to be other eccentric inhabitants in Japan's house. This apparition had a knack for hide-and-seek; how will Japan ever be able to catch it?
1. Should I have never wakened

Being comparatively light that day, the hastiness of the sun creeping its rosy fingers across the sill knocked fast sense into the figure lying with his arm strewn across the table, who, when raising his face to meet the streaming rays, squinted and scrunched his countenance in a variety of different ways, and who raised his eyebrows to and fro, as if he wished to recount something. By stretching his loose hand further down the surface, he came in contact with a vessel, dripping dry its contents onto the quilted floor, and he immediately drew up. He brought the hand to his forehead, and rubbed it generously, to see if he was able to bring more sense back into himself, and to clear away his misty vision. His sight was as misty as ever; there lay no reason to rub anymore!

This fellow, with the edge of his collar flung open, and the sides of his sleeves wet and miserable, was the kind easily stricken by a pall of sorrow, and being also the kind to have difficulty dismissing it, he used more convenient means to dull his mental discernment, and lulling himself into a half sleep, felt perfectly content by it. It seemed so, until he should wake again, and then all the night's activities would come tumbling down on him. There; the room was taking shape now, and he was able to perceive the fallen vase at the side of the room, which he must have tripped over the night before while doing a jig across the room with his empty glass. Setting the clumsy thing upright, he spotted beside it, an overturned mirror. That is strange, he thinks to himself, fondling agitatedly his wet sleeves and scratching the bottom of his chin: a mirror, here! I ought not, he thinks to himself; ought not ever to have a rendezvous alone again, if it takes three days of tidying up for half an hour of bliss, and even more time to recall who he is. The image of his talking to his reflection fondly, as he raised the mirror before him and winked at times into it to ask if the face peering back at him were free on a Sunday night or how he genuinely felt a familiarity for it, as if they were long lost soulmates that had found each other at last, flashed through his head. Very well, he thinks again. Though the clean-up would be a hassle, but it's indefinitely healthy for one to release his repressed emotions once in awhile. Good for the soul, and the heart, he adds aloud, before reaching for the mirror. It was at this moment that a perturbing 'riiiiing!' rang across the room, and almost dropping the mirror and his pants, he bounded across the room for the source.

The voice rang into his head, loud and clear, before he had the time to put the ringer to his ear;

"Hey Japan, it's not that early right? And so because I've been ringing since last night, and you wouldn't pick up, I thought that I'd try again today, just in case you were busy, because I have some VERY important news that, if I don't tell you, would not be so important anymore."

'Right,' he wanted to reply, 'because everything you say is important'.

But before he could respond with a, 'go on,' the other, having no need for encouragement, like lightning, pressed on in an inhumane tempo.

"Of course, as I was saying…" and he didn't catch the rest.

While the voice in his ear began spewing out sentences at such an incredible speed that he feared his intellect was not going to be able to catch up, he turned over the object in his hand and looked curiously into the glass. Behind him, the wall had the picture of a tree, with little red flowers dotting the lithe brown branches that expanded to the four corners of the paper, and further, since a branch or two seemed obscured by the frame, and had the quality of seeming as if they regretted to ever being drawn there. This project, although plain, had unusual sentimental value to him, and he stood placidly breathing into the reflection, and reflecting himself on how much effort he had spent onto it, and how the sun slighting in from the blinds and casting a gloomy shadow across the front made it more pleasant to look at. It was this silence that caused the caller's end to grow quiet, and at last; 'hey, you there?' was uttered through the line.

"I'm here and I heard every word. What were you saying about the world meeting?"

Something in the reflection wavered, and he leaned proximately into the unmoving background. It struck him as a flash of red, and it had crossed by the doorway leading to the hallway, stationed directly to the left of his painting. He took a fleeting glance behind him, and felt the atmosphere of the room chilling and uninviting.

"The world meeting? I wasn't talking about that, as I was saying about the mega hero that will be created to save me from my economic crisis…"

There it was again, and it was unmistakable! Either the alcohol had an effect more torpid than he had imagined, or he had lost his head; but he could not but question his eyes. Was that a figure that had scurried along? He acknowledged the caller with a few 'uh huhs,' and 'of courses', before hurriedly gathering another look behind him, and standing up.

"That's all very well. You must give England a call, he would be dying to hear this. I'll be hanging up now; not one more word now! Yes, yes, very good, and good morning to you."

The phone was set down, and mirror in hand, he turned towards the hallway.

On the ground, an unfamiliar object beckoned for him to approach, and he noted to himself, that in all of his years wandering the house and uncovering forgotten trinkets here and there, he could not recall from his memory, even slightly, this item.


	2. To An Imagination too Fertile!

There lay a single band there; red in colour, and glistening abnormally on the wooden panel. He predicted it was for the hair, but observing its incredible length, he couldn't imagine anyone with such hair that was able to support such a piece of string! This string added to his collection, he walked along the corridor, all the while expecting some abrupt interruption by a masked intruder.

His heart was much too frail to sustain the shock, and he had never been much of a sport at hide-and-seek.

He had, in his mind, contrived the image of some long haired gangster, with equally atrocious whiskers, for which he bounded with the string, in order to make more convenient his sprees. That was ridiculous, he confronted himself silently. What else could it be then? A vengeful spirit, who had by chance, unluckily lost her hair tie during her promenade session in the morning? What then, sort of spirit did its haunting in the peak of day? It was better to brush this all aside, and search for the source without preconceived notions that did more harm than contribute to common sense. But if it were a living, breathing, being, could it stand a blow from a thinly constructed mirror, he had to wonder? Or must he prepare a blunter object? 'Nah', was the last syllable uttered from the bottom of his conscience, and he followed to the end of the hallway with neither paranormal entity nor thieving rascal in sight.

Disheartened at such an intense chase gone pale, but glad that his thumping organ was spared the excitement, he turned away and was beginning to sweat about the amount of cleaning up he would have to do in the living room, and where and how he would dispose of the broken bottles.

But there it was again, and this time, it was closer to him, as if it had brushed him by innocently when he was bent over and picking the lint from his garments.

When he had raised his head again, he fancied he caught the sight of a few strands of hair turning by the corner at the other end, and leading to the living room. Rather than being wholly taken by fear, he stretched a long sigh, and, supposing that the spirit would wait for him there obediently, imagined calling out for it to hold onto its horses, and to give him a slight recess, because he was really unprepared for any surprises, and having held his breath for so long already, he could barely catch it again; though, he begged its pardon, it was all the suspense of the chase that had rendered him tired, and not his inability to walk from one end of his house to the other.

However, as strongly as he tried to calm his roused nerves, there was an exceptional tenderness about the situation itself, and an overall feeling of familiarity. He must admit to himself, that perhaps he attested his giddiness to his overreaction when the presence passed him by, and that the warmth and vague sentimental sensation that washed over him was manufactured by his agitated brain.


	3. How Don't You Get Weary?

Stumbling into the chamber with the vase and the painting, it occurred to him that perhaps the spirit would fain solitude like the good little spirit it was, and that by disturbing it, he could bring upon something in the least pleasant to himself. Well, he argued silently. He could bring the string to it, and return the ghostly artifact to its ghostly owner, and do it a grand favour, even though the ribbon was solid enough for his fist to grasp onto it. It did not crumble, or shake, or even shimmer into the air, and for a moment, he wondered if there was a memory he was overlooking that this specific item belonged in.

He concluded that either he did not remember, because there was only so much that the mind could hold without omitting a point here and there, or that this was indeed the possession of the ethereal being, whatever it was, descending from whichever metaphysical world it had come from.

What did tremble and shake was far from any spiritual manifestation of an object, but the very flowers of the faded scroll, which he observed with quiet astonishment from the doorway. They, like drops of blood, rolled off the surface and vanished into the plank beneath.

'Okay, okay,' he noted sarcastically. 'My heart can afford to burn one of my most precious pieces around, that, though holding as little worth as the fake chrysanthemum bud I keep in the vase, had costed me a lifetime's labour and tears. It's only about over 1000 years old, which I had painted with my own hands. Not worth a penny, for sure!'

For sure, he needed to burn this artifact then, and most likely sprinkle the area around it along with the entirety of the room with salt. Throwing the string at the wall fitfully, half of him was angry at the spirit for enchanting the artwork, but the other half was glad that it did not choose something with a sharp blade or a blunt end, that could fly off the wall and attack him; or break any of the ceramics lying around the rooms. He shivered inwardly, went out of the chamber with a forceful push of the screen door, which then slid shut, and was ultimately discouraged to pursue the entity further, because seeing this supposed paranormal being so active, he suspected that it might be a malevolent phantom of a sort that he had wronged during some time in the span of all his 2000 years. What could it be?

Despite being roused, he took the time to sit down, and to think about what he had just seen. After throwing away the string and observing the frightful state of his living room, he decided that the long hallway was a much more comfortable place to contemplate. He knocked himself twice on the head, and pinched his cheeks, to check if he was daydreaming again, and to keep his senses in check. He rubbed his eyes twice and was considering entering the room again. Or, should he perform a ritual right away, to ward off any evil spirit lingering his house?

Though he believed this apparition to stem from sinister roots, he found it strange that nothing similar to this had ever occurred before, and the idea of performing a purification in his living room while he danced and waved around a wooden wand decorated with pieces of paper streamers seemed to be a scene out of a show, and for some singular reason he didn't find himself in the mood for doing a jig. The exercise would not expel the heaviness weighing over his heart, and for another reason, he believed there to be something underlying in all these abnormal events, that made him fear less the actual entity, but what it should mean.

As he inferred, the string was not there anymore, nor were the flowers tumbling down from the drawn branches, as if they both had sunk into the floorboards, or flown back to their ephemeral worlds. He felt a vague disappointment upon opening the screen, and overcome with moodiness, dropped onto his knees again with his index finger supporting the tip of his chin.

The temperature in the compartment was remarkably warm, as if whatever passed through had left a trail comparable to the warmth of spring, and if he had been a flimsy flower, he would have been glad to root himself there, and bathe in its radiancy from then on like an obedient little plant to the sun.


End file.
